PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia health officials have unveiled a new network of monitors that provide very local, real-time information about air quality.
City officials gathered around a standard-looking utility pole at Stinger Square Park in Grays Ferry on Wednesday. Halfway up the pole, however, sat ground-breaking technology — a solar-powered, waterproof monitor.
In a city where more than one in five children has asthma, tracking air quality is essential, but for years, the city has relied on just 10 hard-wired EPA monitors. Now, it is the first city to deploy 76 of these waterproof monitors that are connected by cellular network to a publicly accessible website.
Health Commissioner Palak Nelson said residents can check air quality, in real time, on a neighborhood level. “You can check on your phone or your tablet or whatever to say, ‘I want to go for a run, should I go now? I'm taking the kids out, is this a good time?’” Nelson explained.
“Last week when we had that fire, this monitor went off. It sensed it, the monitor went off and we knew right away that we needed to communicate information.”
The new technology, which was originated at the University of California, has been years in the making, including a year-long pilot program in Philadelphia to make sure it would work as advertised. Councilmember Nina Ahmad said the $90,000/year price tag is a bargain.
“This is minimal,” she said. “For good health and giving people the power to determine their destiny, this is a drop in the bucket.”